The role of elite subcultures in the preservation of traditional culture and art of medieval Korea

This article, based on the philosophical-sociological approach to the consideration of traditional culture and on the theory of sociocultural stratification declares that a complex, multilayered structure of society provides an appropriate protection to the national culture and through it, to national art. The Korean aristocratic society guided by Confucian standards and patterns since ancient times was predisposed to create the certain range of elite subcultures (munin, hwawon, neoconfucian philosophers and intellectuals), similar to each other, preset to reproduce and translate the values created in mainstream Chinese culture and to form its own specific directions, genres and styles through medieval times. Modernization and westernization that began at the end of the 19th century with its new challenges and objectives contributed to the disintegration of syncretism, typical for the Far Eastern culture and art of Medieval Times, and, as a result, the disintegration of elite subcultures.